


Midwinter

by Kalium



Series: Manifestations - Extras [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood, Community: runaway_tales, Family, Fantasy, Gen, Pre-Canon, Winter, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalium/pseuds/Kalium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dhaymin takes the matter of traditional winter feasts into his own hands. A look into the Dhalsiv brothers' childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> For reference, Jen is about 6, Dhaymin about 9.

Dhaymin paced up and down the gallery, creaky wooden echoes ringing out across the empty hall. Jen, meanwhile, sat by the window, leaning against the frosty glass, his breath fogging it up. “Dhaymin,” he said, “are they going to come back?”

Dhaymin looked out over the courtyard. All the sharp edges were gone, the world smoothed out by a blanket of snow and tinged red by the low-lying sun. A few days ago, there’d been a gash in the snow, deep, dragged-out footsteps where their parents had set off. They too had become smoothed out, nothing more than shallow depressions in the surface to show that anyone had ever been out there. “Me? I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” said Jen, and Dhaymin caught that little sigh of relief, that slight fall of his shoulders as he relaxed. He was getting better at hiding how he felt, Dhaymin could tell, but he was still only six, and he had a way to go before he got the hang of it. But it didn’t matter here, nobody would notice. There were only the kitchen workers right now, and they didn’t have much time for a couple of young boys so long as nothing ended up on fire (now _that_ had been a memorable couple of days...).

But it was wrong! Well, Dhaymin knew that a lot of it was wrong. Jen couldn’t go on hiding like this forever, someday he’d have to grow up and learn that Life Isn’t Fair. Life Isn’t Fair was one of Father’s favourite phrases, and as far as Dhaymin could see it was absolutely right. But what was really wrong was that if Mother and Father didn’t come home, there wouldn’t be a feast. And after they’d spent so long trying to teach the two of them all about why the feast was so important, especially now! It was to celebrate everyone hadn’t died of cold or hunger or monsters!

He let out a sigh of exasperation, his breath fogging up in the chilly air, and it was enough to catch Jen’s attention. The younger boy looked up at him, eyes wide. “Oh,” he said, “that’s not good, isn’t it? You... won’t tell, will you?”

“No,” he said, sitting down beside him and staring out of the window. It didn’t matter if Jen was doing it all wrong. You didn’t tell. “But there isn’t going to be a feast.”

“Oh,” said Jen, and this time Dhaymin couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. “There’ll be food, right?”

“Don’t be silly, of course there’ll be food! Just not... proper, you know?” There was only one person who could declare a proper feast, and that was Father. Maybe that was why he and Mother were gone, maybe they’d bring back something nice. Maybe a grouse, or even a caribou. There _were_ still caribou, right? Jen had once told him something he’d heard about how it was all the big scary things like tigers that had gone first. Something about eating meat. Dhaymin hadn’t really understood - it was another Jen Thing.

“I don’t mind,” said Jen.

 _Yes you do!_ thought Dhaymin. _You just don’t want Mother and Father around for it._ But that was impossible, except...

An idea glimmered in his mind. Father had to declare the feast because he was Lord Dhalsiv, but Dhaymin was going to be Lord Dhalsiv next. And what was more, if Father wasn’t home, didn’t that make Dhaymin... sort of Lord Dhalsiv? That was how it worked, wasn’t it? They’d have to do it all sneakily, yes, because otherwise the kitchen workers would tell Mother, and he’d have to find something to bring in and eat, but he didn’t remember a rule saying what it had to be.

He stood up. “Jen, we’re going to have one now!”

“But-”

Dhaymin leaned over so that their faces were level. “Don’t worry. You won’t tell, will you?”

  
There was a window everyone thought he didn’t know about. If you went all the way around the gallery and into that funny little room with the white pelt over the floor, (it was sort of like an ice-bear, but ice bears didn’t have long tails or short feathery arms), then there was a tree just strong enough to take Dhaymin’s weight, just outside the window. And he knew exactly how to work the lock. It was old, and just a little too rusted, and if you poked it at just the right spot it all fell open. That was good. If he was lucky he wouldn’t have to climb down to the ground at all, and there’d be no footprints to say he’d ever been outside.

A blast of freezing air hit him as the window fell open, but he stood steady as it hit him, and clambered up onto the window ledge.

  
Jen paced around on the gallery, waiting. Dhaymin was going to get them into trouble... but the thing about Dhaymin was you couldn’t stop him. Maybe that was how it felt when you knew you’d own the holding one day? Like you were just waiting for things to get better? Dhaymin had read his mind again, that wasn’t meant to happen! As long as their parents were gone, they had the hold to themselves. They lived, just for now in that glorious, golden window of time where they had nothing to do but what they liked.

That was what he told himself even when he knew it was wrong (it had to be wrong, everyone said so). So he hid it, in the deep bits where nobody could see. Or they weren’t supposed to see it, anyway.

But at least only Dhaymin had noticed, so that was safe.

He’d been gone for ages, too! Jen wondered if he should go and look for him, or if maybe he should sneak away somewhere while they still had that little golden window (no, that had to go back to the deep place), but then he heard a scuffling sound and a clank in the distance, and Dhaymin appeared at the far end of the gallery. “Look! I got something for us!” he called, loud enough for Jen to wince - someone was going to hear! He had to get closer, so he ran as fast as he could to where Dhaymin stood.

Dhaymin held out his prize, grinning like he’d just brought down the biggest, scariest monster in the world. The squirrel dangled from his hand, the white fur of its throat speckled with fresh blood.

“Uh...”

“It can be a feast!” insisted Dhaymin. “I caught it, doesn’t matter what it is!”

“It doesn’t?”

“No! It’s a feast _because I say so!_ Come on, we’d better go cook it. Let’s be quiet.” Dhaymin raced off toward the stairs, and, after a moment of hesitation, Jen followed.

He’d just tell himself it was wrong later. Right now, he was living in the golden window of time.


End file.
